Recruiting Analytics: Insights First

Recruiting analytics are most meaningful when the data yields important insights related to improving recruiting processes.

Employers of all sizes are starting to use analytics to run their businesses more strategically. When it comes to recruiting analytics, it’s the insights you can gain from the information you’ve collected that count and not the sheer volume of data itself, noted a recent post by Kyle Lagunas at Brandon Hall Group.

It’s true that recruiting analytics can give HR and recruiting practitioners valuable information about how effective their various recruitment process are performing. But, where many employers get stuck is aligning and settling in on their desired outcomes. That is, all too often, employers end up trying to measure everything and lose site of valuable recruiting metrics that yield actual insights and not just another report. To be successful and not overburdened with recruitment reporting, it’s critical for people to collect and analyze metrics that help employers uncover bottlenecks in their process.

At Newton, we help organizations have confidence in their data by designing an easy-to-use applicant tracking system. We’ve found that the most important aspect to capturing meaningful data (and eventual insights) is to build a platform that all users, not just recruiters, will actually use on a day-to-day basis. It makes sense. The more people that touch a product, the more relevant data you collect. Newton doesn’t rely on third-party data; our applicant tracking system captures data organically directly from users to provide insights to recruiting leaders through easy-to-read dashboards and user generated custom reports.

Want to use recruiting analytics to gain insights? You have to start somewhere. Here are some quick tips to make your recruiting analytics more meaningful and to use as a driver to gain insights that you will use to improve your recruitment processes.

DON’T TRY TO MEASURE EVERYTHING
Sounds counterintuitive doesn’t it? Start by determining your most important objectives. What’s most important to your senior leadership team? Do they care how many people clicked on a job advertisement? Maybe. But this isn’t what keeps them up at night. Think about the big picture. Focus on data that yields insights into stage-to-stage conversion rates (hiring velocity). Spotlight areas where you can streamline the process to make hires faster.

AVOID STRAW MAN ANALYTICS
As you get started with recruitment analytics, avoid trying to report on areas that will only create more work for your team. For example, recruitment spend is one of the hardest analytics to report on accurately. The operative word here is accurately. To accurately capture recruitment spend you must extrapolate the time and materials of everyone involved in the recruiting process. That’s right, recruitment spend is a huge can of worms.

LEARN TO POSTION REPORTING REQUESTS
Listen, we know it’s tough to push back on your managers that request their own “flavor’ of recruiting reports. That said, if you’re going to be successful as a recruitment professional, you have to learn to have a business conversation about what insights you can provide now to address the desired outcome and discuss what resources you will need to provide future metrics.

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